This didn't start as a Lavender idea, so it might not all be canon compliant. I apologize, and sincerely believe it doesn't take away from the story. Enjoy!
-
She had what she thought was the perfect recipe for perfect happiness.
It was simple, so simple. Almost too simple. She sometimes wondered how was it that it was only her who was so happy. How stupid the people around her were, to not discover her secret to happiness. It was so, so simple, but she was the only one smart enough to realize it. And such was the trick:
You made things go away.
Like, when she was little. She had had a friend over, and her little brother kept following them around. So she sent him to bring her a pen, and when he returned, she asked for a hairbrush, and so on. She made him go away, and she was happy.
It continues to work as she got older. When she was twelve, and her first pimple came out, she covered it up with a little charm Parvati showed her. "It's not healthy to magic it off, Mum says," she'd explained, "But it's no problem hiding it." And so she'd hid it, and was happy. True, it was still there, but nobody knew it, and so she forgot it, until it went away by itself.
Out of sight, out of mind. That was another good tip for your blissful happiness. Say, when she failed her Potions exam in her fourth year. She burned the paper, holding it up to a candle in the dorm, herself the only witness, Parvati her only confident. "You still failed," Parvati had reasoned, "Doesn't matter whether you have the evidence with you or not. Professor Snape has it written somewhere, and it's kept in your records and everything. You can't make a grade disappear by burning it."
"Of course it doesn't disappear. But if I don't have the evidence, there's nothing to remind me of it. I don't have to think about it." Parvati shook her head, but to her it made perfect sense. And she was happy.
It got harder as she got older. When she noticed just how much time her WonWon spent with Granger, Granger's reaction to their relationship. There were times she got suspicious and paranoid, struggling to find the happiness that had always come to her easily. But she managed, pushing back the bad thoughts whenever they surfaced, clinging as hard as she could to whatever kept her happy. And when they resurfaced, she'd push them back again, and again and again. She made them go away, and was happy.
And even with the war looming overhead, with the deaths everyday in the paper, she made herself be happy. She refused to listen to Parvati worry; she refused to read the Daily Prophet. She would later wonder at herself, how could she be so blind, but those were the facts. She shut her eyes and plugged her ears, and pretended all the bad things weren't there, made them go away. And she tried to be happy.
But some things didn't go away. Like the scars that cross her back, ugly and revolting. They never went away, no matter what she did. And with those scars, there were other scars, which ran much deeper, that made her wake in the middle of the night, her screams muffled by her pillow. They were always there, and always would be, those scars, and she was not happy, not for a long time.
But she learned to be happy. A different kind of happiness. Not the innocent joy of a child, or the blindness of one who is afraid of reality. Her new happiness was that of a survivor, of one who has known pain and sorrow and has pulled through it all. And she has learned that if you wish for true happiness, you shouldn't make things go away, but rather wait for them to go away by themselves. And though the nightmares still come sometimes, she is happy.